Contact the Gorgeous Captain in the Hanged Man
by ElectraSev5n
Summary: Isabela won't deny that she likes big boats. That'd be a lie. Drabble series chronicling her attempts to snag a good-looking crew, a fine vessel, and escape Kirkwall before those snooty Qunari notice she's there.
1. Chapter 1

With one last strain of aching muscles and a wet '_shlopp'_ sound, Isabella flopped onto the pier and groaned miserably into the wooden boards. She managed to turn her head enough so that one cold cheek rested on the filthy ground and she could see off in the direction where she'd swam from. For a moment she fancied that she could see her beautiful ship sinking sadly off in the distance, but it was only a trick of the light. She'd been pretty far off shore when those horned bastards had- well. It didn't matter.

"Hey! What are you doing here? This dock is off-limits, civilian." Heavy footsteps sounded from behind her, and she felt a pointed toe nudging the back of her head.

Isabella's eyes narrowed and with lightning-speed she rolled onto her side, grabbed two ankles and yanked them apart. The guardsman fell with an undignified yelp. She had stood before he'd really hit the ground. She smiled down at his dazed expression and deliberately placed one foot on either side of his torso, leaning down provocatively to hook a finger under his collar. "Hey handsome," she purred. "I'm looking for a boat. Have you seen one?"

* * *

After a rousing chase around town, Isabella easily slipped away from the contingent of slow-moving guardsmen in heavy plate armor.

Apparently her new friend had spent so long enjoying her company that he'd missed when he was meant to report back. It was fine- she'd gotten all the information she needed out of him anyways.

"Ah." Isabella sucked in a deep breath as something particularly rank reached her nose. "I love the smell of a _really_ filthy tavern. Stinks like home." Her eyes flicked to the door as a couple of unusually weedy guardsmen walked in and began scanning the crowd. '_Poor dears._' Her lips quirked up. '_Someone got the shit route_.' She gracefully extended a foot as two men stumbled past with mugs clench in meaty hands. The man closest to her went down in a spectacular spray of cheap liquor and indignant shouts went up from a group at the table behind them.

A husky woman with bloodshot eyes leapt up from her seat and held her tunic away from her chest with a disgusted expression, trying to keep the nasty swill off her skin. The man who hadn't stumbled sniggered and elbowed his companion who was just now getting back on his feet. "Sorry sweetcheeks."

"Right, that's it." The woman abandoned her futile attempt to stay dry and swung her fist directly into the first man's jaw with a nasty 'crack' sound and a whirl of tangled red hair. The downed man bellowed like a wounded boar and his companion lurched towards her. She gave a feral grin and spat in his face and stepped to the side so he missed her. "Bar fight!" someone shouted gleefully, and the pub erupted into chaos. Isabella turned back to her drink with a satisfied smile and drank the whole thing down before casually tossing it aside. It hit the table with a clang and rolled off to the floor as she drew her leg over the bench and slipped away in the confusion to the room she had rented upstairs.

"I think I'm going to like this city."


	2. Chapter 2

"So you're Isabella," Aveline said reluctantly, hand straying to the top of her blade.

"That's me." The pirate queen smiled guilelessly, lacing her fingers together and stretching her arms above her body, giving the guardsman on Aveline's right a coy look through her arms. The redhead could practically _feel_ the heat radiate off his blush. She elbowed him in the gut testily, not appreciating the lapse in professionalism.

"Right then," she muttered, wishing she could do something. The woman didn't seem to be paying attention. "You've apparently been causing disturbances, Isabella. I'm going to have to ask you to stop. If we catch you starting fights again, it'll be lock-up for you."

"Of course, officer-ser," she saluted badly, attention already wandering over Aveline's shoulder. "I will definitely not get caught misbehaving again."

Aveline's eyebrows furrowed. "Don't you mean-"

Then she stopped and rubbed at her eyes wearily, because the curvaceous woman was already halfway across the room. "Good enough," she mumbled to herself, leading her trainee out the door. She yanked at his collar when he stopped to gawk, mouth hanging open at the pretty pirate who was slinking her hands under another woman's shirt.

After the law was gone, Isabella relaxed. Of course, it wasn't like anyone around could have noticed that she was tense before. '_I hate guardsmen'_, she sighed, distracting herself with a pretty blonde and letting the free drinks accumulate.

Her quest to find a suitable ship and get the hell off this godforsaken rock was not going well so far. She had reluctantly tabled that part of the plan in favor of trying to find a crew. A good one, that wouldn't be so stupid as to take on slaves. They also had to be intelligent, and incredibly good looking. Sailing skills could be taught later. She tried not to cackle.

The door to the tavern opened with a ray of sunshine that lit up the dank insides. Framed precisely in the doorway, like a sign from the Maker himself, was a short woman with dark hair, porcelain skin, and electric blue eyes, as well as a generous smearing of red face paint. She was dressed like a rogue in light armor with a bow on her back and two daggers at her hips, wearing confidence like a second skin.

'_Hubba hubba.' _Isabella licked at her lips unconsciously.

When the woman Isabella suddenly wanted to meet moved further in to the room to take a seat, Isabella noted that her companion was that red-headed dwarf who had been one of her card-playing companions last night. She gave a sharkish smile, baring white teeth. It wouldn't be strange at all to walk over and ask for another drink and a game, would it?

Mildly dazed, Isabella ignored the woman chattering to her right, barely noticing when the girl huffed and stomped away. She leaned over, elbows on the table, and just stared at the other woman behind her ale. '_I want that one_,' she decided.

* * *

Hawke was proving strangely resistant to her charms, Isabella noted in her diary a few days later with a pout. It was probably a new record for her- it had never taken this long to seduce someone before. She either succeeded or got bored.

Part of Hawke's charm might have been her friends. The pirate tried not to leer too obviously at the woman's well-endowed little sister who displayed an adorable innocence, but the other mage... the one with the huuuuge staff? Well. A lesser woman might have been off-put by all the feathers, but Isabella was a connoisseur of sorts. She had already explored what he had to offer, and she was pretty pleased. When Hawke showed up one day trailing an exotic elven girl like a duckling, something in Isabella's black little heart eeked out an 'Oh, how adorable. I must have her for my own'. Her future crew was coming together quite nicely.

Now, if she could only get them onto a boat... or naked.

* * *

Two weeks later, Isabella outright cackled when she discovered the mysterious client that she had tagged along with Hawke to help clear out a slaver's base. He was delicious.

"I feel like a girl in a candy store!" she shouted, grinning wildly in between swings. Tall, dark, and handsome grunted, swinging around the largest sword she had ever seen and cutting slavers directly in half.

"That's alright," she muttered, eying his rear end. "We can't all be conversationalists."


End file.
